Our Wedding, Chapter One

So right before we left for our weddingmoon to The Bahamas, I accepted a job to start with Cisco as a recruiting consultant, and went into the trip feeling relaxed because I crossed a huge burden off my personal to do list - FIND JOB- so now I could GET MARRIED! I had a week or so to take my time preparing for the wedding and picking up last-minute things that I had hadn't found yet, like bridal jewelry and “resort wear” outfits for Sheridan (those aren’t supposed to be last-minute items, but for me, they were). And it gave me some time to switch gears and start preparing for our amazing week!!

Unfortunately, it also gave me time to obsess about the impending Hurricane/ Tropical Storm Hanna and watch The Weather Channel obsessively to see if it was going to ruin our wedding! Was it going to hit Nassau, avoid it, and was it going to be a storm or hurricane? Crap!!!

The day before we left, we realized that Hanna was indeed going to hit Nassau almost directly, and debated on whether or not to cancel - we bought trip insurance just in case my pregnancy didn't cooperate with our trip - but decided that we were going to take our chances, go get married, and make the most of it, no matter what came our way!!

The night before we left, we did last-minute packing, bought snacks for our long journey, and dropped the doggie off at Pet Villa for the week. He didn't even look back at me - he hit the front door, ran for his favorite caretaker, John, jumped in his lap, and that was that... I would imagine it's like dropping your kid off at daycare and the kid not being particularly upset that you're leaving them. Guess I might want to get used to that idea! But Baci did leave us a little surprise when we got home - we found a dog cookie in Sheridan's suitcase as we were wrapping up his packing. He does love us, after all!!! Yay!

The next day, we got up at 4:00 a.m. for our 6:15 a.m. flight to Phoenix, and couldn't believe how busy the airport was! We got out safely, flew through Phoenix to get to Fort Lauderdale (most miserable flight of my life - I sat next to a fat, hairy, snoring beast on one side, and my broad-shouldered beau on the other, in the smallest seat imaginable, for 4.5 hours!!!), and eventually got to Nassau after a long 9 hour journey!

We arrived to Nassau and I could tell that Sheridan was thinking "where on earth has this woman brought me?" because looking around, downtown Nassau is pretty poor. They drive on the left side of the road and everything's on "island time", meaning everything takes FOREVER, including our shuttle from the airport to the hotel... it's like another planet! I assured Sheridan that it was going to be a fabulous resort and I could tell he was a little skeptical... (and I got a little nervous!) Not to mention, it was starting to get *pretty* windy…

We finally arrived to Sandals around 8:00 p.m. and had a lovely VIP check-in, checked into our room, and got ready for our first night in the resort. We got dressed and hit our first restaurant, Kimono's, the hibachi-style restaurant, and sat with 2 other honeymooning couples, both from the East Coast. We instantly hit it off with our new buddies Matt and Tonya from Washington State… great people!! We all felt a little bit weird about leaving right after our fabulous dinner without paying, but I guess that’s the beautiful part of all-inclusive packages!

After dinner, and after a couple of drinks at the bar (and a junkanoo parade through the bar - junkanoo is a Bahamian cultural tradition, like Mardi Gras for The Bahamas), it was time to call it a night and get some rest. We were looking forward to seeing what this adventure would bring us!